Many display devices exist within the market today. Among the displays that are available are thin-film, coated, electroluminescent (EL) displays, such as organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. These displays can be driven using an active matrix or passive matrix back plane. Regardless of the technology that is applied, these display devices are typically integrated into a system that involves a controller for receiving an input image signal, converting the input image signal to an electronic drive signal and supplying the electronic drive signal to the electroluminescent display device which drives an array of emitters to produce light in response to the drive signal.
Unfortunately, as these emitters convert current to light they typically degrade and this degradation is a function of the current that is provided to each emitter. As such, the emitters that receive the most current degrade at a faster rate than emitters that receive less current. As the emitters degrade, they produce less light as a function of current. Therefore each emitter will likely have a different amount of degradation and this difference in degradation results in differences in luminance when the emitters are driven with the same current to produce a uniform image. As a result, inadvertent patterns are created when the display is turned on due to this difference in luminance uniformity. These patterns can be distracting and cause the display to be perceived by the end user as low in quality or, under extreme conditions, unusable.
Fortunately, in many applications, such as when displaying motion video, the image content is constantly changing and the current to every emitter is varied as a function of the image content. Therefore, the amount of current is relatively balanced across the emitters of the display over time and the differences in degradation and hence differences in luminance when displaying a uniform image is balanced, making this problem a non-issue. In the event that the video is paused or a single static image is displayed, the quality of the display can be degraded because the pattern of currents across the display are stationary with respect to the array of emitters.
This problem is not unique to OLED but instead arises in all known emissive displays, including CRTs and plasma displays, and can be exhibited by non-emissive displays, such as liquid crystal displays. One method that has been demonstrated to reduce this problem in the prior art is to detect the presence of a static image and reduce the peak luminance and therefore the current through each emissive display element in the display.
As an example of prior art for reducing the peak luminance, Asmus et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,338,623, discusses a CRT display which includes a circuit for detecting a static image and a circuit for protecting the display by decreasing the brightness of the displayed image by decreasing the voltage at the cathode of the CRT. While this method satisfies the requirement that it will reduce the image stick artifact, the method provides a very rapid change in luminance, which will be quite noticeable to the user and by controlling the analog circuit in this fashion, there is little control of the appearance of the image after its luminance is reduced.
Similarly Jankowiak in U.S. Pat. No. 6,313,878, discusses a system which sums the red, green, and blue component signals in an input digital signal to detect the presence of a static image and then produces an analog signal to adjust a video gain on the display to reduce the luminance of the display in response to a static image. Once again, the method permits static images to be dimmed, however, by changing the gain value, there is little ability to control the appearance of the final image after its luminance is reduced.
Holtslag in U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,328, discusses detecting static regions in an image and reducing the intensity of only these areas in the image. Holtslag also discusses reducing the light intensity in a stepwise fashion to reduce the visibility of the change in luminance of the display. However, Holtslag does not provide a detailed description of the method used to reduce visibility.
Ekin in WO 2006/103629, acknowledges that by simply dimming the display using methods, such as described by Asmus, Jankowiak or Holtslag, important image data can become invisible to the user. Ekin proposes a very complex solution to this problem that involves performing object detection to detect individual objects in a scene, calculating the contrast between the luminance of these objects and then reducing the luminance of these objects in a way as to maintain at least a minimum contrast between these objects in the scene. Unfortunately, the implementation of algorithms for object detection within a display driver is prohibitively expensive and does not provide a practical solution to maintaining the quality of the image as the luminance of the display is reduced to avoid image stick. Further, such methods are very difficult to employ in natural images, which have nearly continuous tonal levels and it is impossible to maintain adequate contrast between every tonal level such that the difference in tonal levels are visible.
Sony has recently marketed an OLED television referred to as the XEL-1. This display detects the presence of a static image and dims the display in the presence of a static image. This dimming is performed slowly so that the user is not aware that it is occurring. Radiometric measurements indicate that the decrease in luminance is linearly related to time within distinct portions of the luminance decrease function, however, this function includes several distinct portions, some with a slope of zero and some with a linear slope greater than zero. Further, the images constantly lose shadow detail as the image is dimmed. Photometric assessment of this display shows that dimming such that the luminance is reduced by a constant ratio for all luminance values.
It is desirable to provide a method of dimming an EL display in a way that the user is unaware of the fact that the image is being dimmed. However, it is also important that the display dim as rapidly as possible to minimize the opportunity for image burn-in. Further, it is desirable that the image is dimmed in a way that information is not lost as the image is dimmed.